![]() ![]() I think it is because of the godlike perspective - compassionate yet distanced - that the narrator maintains throughout. Yet somehow the book is not horribly sad, even though I felt for the characters and worried about what would happen to them. It’s the 20th century in Poland, so lots of specifically bad things happen, along with the usual tragedies of unrequited love, growing older and dying. ![]() The sense of sweep, the magical realism, the godlike view and the way that one small place is used as a microcosm for the world were all familiar. ![]() Primeval reminded me in some ways of 100 Years of Solitude, if that book had been set in Poland and covered only about 80 years of recognizable history and had actual scenes instead of narrative summary. As a reader I was just blown away as a writer I kept going, how did she DO that? Stayed up too late reading and then could not fall asleep because my mind was so inflamed thinking about scenes and people from the book. I read most of it in a single night because I could not stop, even as I knew I should read more slowly to better understand and appreciate the spell the author is casting here. This amazed me, one of those books that enlarged my idea of what fiction could be and what it could do. Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |